When thinking about the design of a rider, how about we try and make the shape so that a paper template can be supplied that can slide over the rider - this paper template could be used to customize the rider with coat-of-arms, name, team colors, etc...

I've uploaded the LDraw file to my NXT page - feel free to get it from there.

It's the one for the 13 holed head version which I personally consider more convenient (the 15 holed one may be easily deduced from it, though).

As for the rider, the paper template is a nice idea indeed (even with me being into the "pure" stuff - I like to see the way the robot is built and working, according to the old Bauhaus motto "functional is beautiful"). However, there might be the possibility of a pre-set template shape rather limiting the robot creator in its creative power when it comes to designing the rider. Do you think this a valid concern of mine? On the other side, I can easily imagine people adorning their beloved robot knight anyway...:-)

When it comes to the rider, what is your approach towards the "loose coupling"?Should we just define a standard "mounting point" where each rider will have to "sit" (and pass some pre-defined knock-off tests)? Or even a whole "mounting connection" to build horse and rider around? In my opinion we have to ensure that this coupling is at least roughly equal for all combatants, else whole fights might become unfair.

After all, most presumably it's a good strategy to build two or three riders with these questions in mind first to get some feeling for the matter.

You'll have to read my other comment later (tomorrow) about the rider... but basically I'm thinking we should keep the rider as a standard piece like the lance... and let the mount be the item that is uniquely created... if we have too many variables, it will be harder to keep the competition balanced/fair... maybe I'm wrong, so feel free to push back on this. My thought is that if we define the lance and the rider, we have two components that we can define within the rules with standards:

1. Rider must be a minimum of X cm/inches above the flat surface.

2. Lance end can be no more than X cm/inches from the main body of the rider... etc....

I have to admit that it didn't even occur to me to have a standardized rider - but it's a capital idea!As you already pointed out, rules will become much easier with that (clinging to the concept of iterations, we may turn over to user-defined riders in a future advanced step, possibly).

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